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I would choose the goal of Renewable Energy as our school has recently gotten solar panels fitted. This provides the school as a starting point for learning. The children can see the solar panels in action and research work can occur into the uses of solar panels. We could explore the benefits these have for our school and for the environment and also some drawbacks that may occur.
I would agree climate change is a very important topic. There are some great ways to explore this in the classroom.
Gender Sterotypes influence children from a young age. It is import at these stereotypes are challenged and development education provides lots of opportunities for this to happen. It has been very interesting to read different scenarios other teachers have encountered on this post. I have encountered a few gender stereotypes in my classroom.
Last year I was teaching junior infants in an all male school. At the beginning of the year, the children asked why we had a toy kitchen in the classroom, I responded that it was for play time. One boy questioned why boys would be playing with the kitchen. This emphasised to me that these sterotypes start as young as 5 years old. It was interesting to see that at the beginning of the year, the children avoided the kitchen however once one child started playing with it they all did,
Another example is whilst doing art and painting spring flowers. We discussed different colours we would need to paint the flowers. A variety of colours were discussed for example, green for the leaves, yellow for the petals. The children were provided with a variety of different pastel colours for their flowers and were allowed to use whatever colour they liked. Pink was one of the fewer options we saw used. Although no one mentioned anything about the colour pink, it was interesting to see it was not the children’s colour preference. I think this re-emphasised for me gender stereotypes and how society emphasises boys liking blue and girls liking pink from as young as birth!Very interesting to see the changes that a co educational approach will bring about. It also provides lots of opportunities to challenge gender stereotypes
I would agree that development education is very important in schools today. The paper was very insightful and provided lots of points of thought. Today, Schools are very diverse. There are lots of opportunities to teach development education, in particular integration opportunities across a wide range of subjects. I would definitely focus on the SESE subjects as a starting point but could also make links to painting in visual arts and debates in English. As mentioned in this module, there should not be an emphasis on extra lessons and the focus should be on learner centred classrooms and process centered learning. These are two very important points I would take away. Students today are exposed to lots in social media and on the news. As a teacher, I think it is important to teach lessons and explore issues of development education that I would be confident in teaching. The global goals are a good starting point for lessons and provide a good focus. These could be incorporated into a whole school plan where a focus on a different goal or multiple goals occurs per term
Very informative response Claire. I too agree that classrooms today are so diverse and it is very important that development education is a focus!
Going to a local beach is a great idea and uses the immediate environment as the children’s starting point for learning! It is excellent being in close proximity to the beach. Being in a city school we do not have this opportunity with the high costs of buses !
Using an atlas is a great starting point for these lessons. Very hands on activity for the children! They could work in pairs or groups for this to encourage collaboration
Yeah I do agree a big screen would be more effective! Perhaps using a projector in school would be a way to do this
I really like the blended approach of stories. Reflecting on my teaching experience children love to listen to and to share stories. They love when they connect to learning
I think studying famous inventors is a great idea! We did this using iPads for one of our activities for science week, the children enjoyed it and learned lots !
There were a wide range of interesting lesson ideas in the ‘Nose up High in the Sky’ Manual! I will definitely use this going forward in my teaching. It provides teachers with a tool to build on lessons in SESE books and provide more meaningful activities which encourage engagement. A lesson that particularly stuck out to me was the first on on Old Weather Proverbs. Reflecting on this, it is interesting for children as some of them may be familiar with these proverbs or may have heard them by parents or grand parents before! It shows children how these would have been relied upon in the past when weather forecasting wouldn’t be as up to date as it is now! I think this lesson also provides many opportunities for cross curriculum integration for example translating the weather proverbs in Gaeilge or painting a ‘Red Sky at Night’ in Visual Arts!
Question? How Does Climate Change Affect Our Weather in Ireland and what effect does it have on our lives
I carried out a similar lesson involving the above research question in my second class this year. We discussed the differences in Weather and how it is much more humid and also how we have more flooding in Ireland than ever before. Using our school iPads, we researched into changing weather patterns in Ireland and particularly focused on our county of Cork for flooding. This was a lesson the children were really engaged in. We also made a lot of connections to our life experiences- when do we wear coats? how come it rains more? There was also an at home activity where the children interviewed a parent or grandparent about weather patterns when they were children. Our findings highlighted that as a result of climate change weather and its impact on our enviornment are changing.
A student mentioned about a sibling they have in Austrlia. This question sparked up further debate and questioning about forest fires in Austrlia and their impact on the environement. We then explored this more in a follow on lesson!
